Sal Posillico ran down the alley in double-overtime on Sunday afternoon, quickly stopping and freezing the defender in front of him. The defender’s scouting report must’ve not read, “short-stick defensive midfielder who is a 40% shooter with five points on the season.”
Posillico made a move to get past the man in front, found an angle and placed a bouncer in the back of the net to give the Pride their sixth win of the season in a 11-10, 2OT victory over MIT.
“I ended up at about the 30-yard line, and I kind of paused for a little bit, and the defender paused with me, so I just took him to the rack,” Posillico said. “I’ve been practicing that shot for a while, because I always get that alley, and it paid off.”
The game should’ve never ended the way it did, but the Pride prevailed. Springfield allowed its 10th goal of the game to go down 10-4 with 4:51 left in the third quarter.
Before that happened, Springfield head coach Sean Quirk told all 42 of his players at halftime to, “figure it out.”
They did.
The Pride fired off seven unanswered goals, and tested Quirk’s heart rate a multitude of times throughout the second half.
“MIT is a hell of an opponent. They’re really good, but I sensed that they were getting tired. When we were down three goals, I really started to believe we had a shot,” Quirk said. “We talk about that mindset, mentally and physically every day. I knew if we got a couple bounces to go our way, we were going to be in a good spot, and it happened.”
The six-goal comeback is the largest comeback in program history since 2019, and the largest 2nd half come-from-behind victory since 2013. Here’s a look at lacrossereference.com’s win probability chart for MIT on Sunday:
The pride clawed back with goals from Bryan Stensrud, Matt Webb and Brady Soldo. Rory Scanlon used his speed to blow by a defender to cut the deficit to 10-8 with 5:35 to go in the fourth quarter, but the offense stalled for another five minutes. A turnover and a failed possession had Springfield still down two with under a minute to go, yet Scanlon scored another with 35 seconds left to put the Pride within a goal.
The next faceoff ensued, and chaos broke out; MIT won the face off, but Reece Whitney caused a turnover with 17 seconds left, and Logan Ruby got the ball to Dom Savastano, who then passed it to his brother, Nick.
Nick is a senior, who has played several different roles throughout his four years with the Pride. He started six games at attack his freshman year and put up solid numbers, but his role switched over the course of the four years to the wing/midfielder. Late in the game, attackman Jake Degnan went down with a lower body injury, and Nick eventually filled in. He scored the first goal for his team in the first quarter, and the last with six seconds left in the game when he scored the game-tying rip. The Pride headed into overtime knotted up at 10-10.
“[The pass from Dom and the goal] was just straight up backyard lacrosse. When the ball got to my stick I knew it had to go straight in the net. It didn’t matter how, but it had to be in,” Nick said. “We needed every person on that sideline and on the field to win today.”
The first overtime was a whole lot of nothing, other than MIT’s goalie Collin Lung making a save at the doorstep, but the Pride’s defense was locked down. Reece Whitney, Angus Oliveira and Dylan Brown all had three caused turnovers. Kaden Quirk’s defense has at least four, if not five deserving All-NEWMAC defenders by the end of the season.
Joey Grenier made a save early in the second overtime period, and he had an outstanding second half in the cage, saving the last five shots that went his way. Posillico’s bouncer iced the game, putting the Pride at 6-4, marking their best 10-game start since 2018.
“They’re dogs, man. Win or lose, these guys don’t quit,” Quirk said about his squad. “They’re gonna play ‘till the end, and we might make mistakes and errors and everything else, but they’re gonna play hard regardless of the outcome.”